


Honeysuckle Rose

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 09:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16741201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: Willow and Xander take a field trip so Willow can get material for a term paper. It'll be a fun afternoon out...right?





	Honeysuckle Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Brief disturbing imagery  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al own everything. I own nothing  
> Beta extraordinaire as always: thismaz  
> Written for the spook_me ficathon 2018  
> Comments are cuddled and called George

Willow stopped by the gates at the bottom of the drive to the old house. It had been a long walk to the far end of Nixon Avenue and her initial enthusiasm about the field trip had dwindled as the years of family conditioning about the horrors of veering off the straight and narrow whispered and swelled in the back of her mind. “I’m not sure about this,” she said.

Xander paused. He’d been heel-toeing along a narrow section of post and rail that bordered the house’s overgrown gardens. He looked kind of precarious, windmilling his arms as he fought for balance. “You were the one who wanted to come,” he said once he’d regained his equilibrium. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“I know, but, but we’re going to be trespassing. I didn’t really think about it before, but now we’re here, you know? I mean, what if we get caught? We could get arrested and my folks will never speak to me again, and I won’t graduate from junior high, so I’ll never have my senior year and then I’ll never get to college and I’ll end up sleeping on the streets. All because I wanted to do a field trip so I could get material for my term paper.” She waved the notebook clutched in her hand to punctuate her point.

“Okaaay.” He jumped down off the fence, almost tripping over one untied shoelace on his sneakers. “Let’s just dial back on the crazy. I think you might just be overthinking things a little bit, Wills.”

She blushed and dropped her hand back to her side, but her fingers continued to twitch restlessly against the hard cover of the notebook. “Maybe just a little. But I’m still right about the trespassing.”

“This place has been empty for years. I don’t think it’s been occupied since we used to come here in kindergarten. You remember, when they tried to turn it into an arts centre?”

“I remember,” she said. “You used to like it when we got painting, but you always finished up with paste in your hair when we got crafty.”

“Says the crayon breaker.”

“Hey. That was my first day.”

“First day makes the memory, Wills. “

She smiled. “Yeah, it really does. Anyway, that doesn’t make the fact that we’re going to be trespassing go away. My mom is so not going to be happy with me if I get a black mark on my record.”

“I don’t really think anyone is going to bother if we go and look around. And if we do meet anyone, we’ll just tell the truth. You’re doing some research for school. You can wave your notebook again to prove your point and you’ve got a good defence against your mom if you need it.” He raised his hand and grabbed a loose strand of hair that had escaped from her Alice band and pulled it gently. “Come on, it’ll be cool.”

“Cool,” she repeated. “Okay, I can do that. I can be cool. Can’t I?”

“That’s my Willow, always with the questions.” He gave her hair a last tug, then turned and ran up the driveway. “Last one to the front steps buys the milk shakes later,” floated back on the soft, late summer air.

“Oh, you’re going to pay for that, Xander Harris,” she muttered and tore off up the driveway after him. She knew she wouldn’t catch him, but the fun was in the game and with Xander the game was always fun.

He was sprawled on the front steps of the old house when she turned the corner. She stopped running and walked the last few feet, catching her breath.

“Beat you,” he said.

“You’ve got longer legs than me. And, and you cheated.”

“I didn’t cheat. I just gave myself a head start.”

She blew a stray hair away from her face and stuck out her tongue at him. 

“Very mature.”

“Said the cheater. I’m just amazed you didn’t fall over and break something. You really should tie up that shoelace.”

He stretched out his leg and waggled his foot at her. “Where would be the fun in that. Got to give you something to mom me about.”

“I am not your mother.” The very idea gave her the wig, but she was old enough now not to let her feelings show. 

“No, you really are not,” he replied. “You’re my Willow girl. That’s an entirely different species.”

“Is that meant to be a compliment?” she asked.

“’Course it is.” There’s only one Willow in my world – accept no substitutes. Come on, let’s explore round the back.” He pushed himself up off the steps and gave an elaborate bow that ended with him tripping over his shoelace. “I meant to do that,” he said, but he didn’t tie up the lace. He waved his hand grandly. “After you, milady.”

“Why thank you, kind sir.” She smoothed her free hand down the bib of her overalls as if she was fussing with a party dress and walked past him, her nose in the air. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

“If you insist.” He swung in beside her and they ambled around the side of the house, shoulders bumping.

The house had seen better days. Its external paintwork was peeling and cracked and the closed shutters on the windows made it look like it was staring blankly into the outside world and hiding goodness knows what within. She definitely didn’t want to go inside and find out. Atmosphere for a term paper was one thing, but voluntarily going into creepy houses was something else altogether, even if Xander was there to hold her hand.

The glass houses to the rear were another matter. Like the main building, they’d seen better, grander days, but somehow the fact that they were mainly glass made them less intimidating, less creepy. The brick base of the main structure was crumbling, and most of the panes in the walls and roof were missing or broken. The door was open, its hinges rusted and buckled and the wooden threshold was rickety and smeared with lichen. Her gaze was drawn up to the transom which was miraculously still in one piece. There was an etched outline of the rays of a rising sun still clearly visible in the glass. “Isn’t it pretty,” she said.

Xander stood at her side. He had his hands linked behind his neck as he rocked back and forward on his heels, the perfect picture of boyish boredom. “Looks kind of broken down to me,” he replied.

“I don’t mean the whole thing. I mean the window above the door. Isn’t it amazing that it’s still in one piece when so much of the rest of the glass is all broken?”

“I guess. Maybe no one got around to breaking it, but hey, I can fix that.” He unlinked his hands and stooped to pick up a flat stone, tossing it in his hand.

“Xander Harris, don’t you even think about it.”

“I’m kidding. You know I wouldn’t really.”

“I know, but it’s not nice to tease.”

“It’s just an old greenhouse.” he said. “No one is going to care if another bit of glass gets broken.”

“I’ll care,” she replied.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered. “Jesse would have let me break it if he’d been here.” 

Despite his protestations, she noticed he still dropped the stone. “Just as well he’s not,” she said. “I wouldn’t get any work done if you were both trying to distract me. And, it’s not a greenhouse. It’s an Orangerie.”

“A what-erie?”

“Orangerie. It’s like a greenhouse, but it was designed for growing oranges and, and grapes and mangoes and other fruit that it would be hard to grow outside in cold countries.” 

“California isn’t cold,” he objected. “And why would you want to grow oranges? I can get them at the store. If it’s about growing other stuff, why didn’t they call it a Mangoerie, or a Graperie?”

She hit him lightly on the arm and he grinned at her. “Dork,” she said. “You know what I mean. Back when the house was built, oranges probably weren’t as common. I mean, they grew them to sell here in California, but having your own citrus fruit to pick right here in your garden must have been pretty neat.”

“And I’m guessing a big way of showing off to the neighbours,” he replied.

“Probably,” she agreed. “I remember my mom telling me that this house was originally built by the family that brought the railway to town. They must have had a ton of money.”

“It didn’t stop the house, or this whole place, getting all ruined in the end, though,” he said. “And now I’m going to channel my dad moaning about folks with money wasting it on things that don’t matter.”

“I’m sure it mattered to them at the time,” she replied. “Anyway, I promised mom I’d be back in time for dinner. Let’s go in. I need to get the atmosphere if I’m going to get an ‘A’ in my report.”

“Will, you always get an A for your reports. The day you don’t get an ‘A’ I know the world is going to end.” He paused. “Or maybe that doesn’t happen until the day I get an ‘A’.”

“Don’t put yourself down. It’ll happen. You just need to study more. Stop goofing off so much.”

“But I’m good at goofing. I’m a world class goofer, and that’s because I practice. It’s not easy being this brilliant.”

She giggled. “Goof.” 

Glancing around, she made sure there was no one else to be seen before stepping carefully over the lichen-covered step and into the Orangerie. It was surprisingly cool inside, the overgrown ivy clinging to the outside frame and roof creating shade in a space that had once been designed to harness the sun and feed the fruit that gave the building its name. Benches ran down either side, littered with broken bits of plant pots and rusting garden implements and the herringbone brick walkway down the centre fought with an invading army of weeds and grass and the assorted detritus that spoke to long years of neglect. Everything was thick with dust and the leavings of countless roosting birds.

“Jeez, Will,” he said. 

She turned and he stood in the doorway balanced on the rickety threshold, waving his hand in front of his face. “It kind of stinks in here what with all the bird poop and mouldy stuff.”

“It’s called guano.”

“It’s called stinky, is what it’s called. And ooh, nibbles.”

“What?”

“Down there – blackberries. See, in the gap between those two benches.

She turned back and followed where he was pointing. “Trust you to spot food.”

“Never let an opportunity go by,” he confirmed. “Since I’m seeing a distinct lack of oranges, I’m going to take what’s on offer.” He brushed past her, picking his way through the accumulated rubbish on the floor. The blackberry bushes had pushed their way through the broken windows, their long branches waving gently in the slight breeze through the shattered glasses.

“Like aliens,” she muttered.

“What?”. 

“The blackberry plants, they look kind of alien, or like, like they know we’re here. It’s a bit creepy.”

“Oh, you mean like Triffids?”

She shivered. “I really didn’t like that book. It was disturbing. Chocky was much better.”

“Oh yeah, because everybody needs an imaginary alien friend.”

“Stop being such a boy. And leave some blackberries for me.”

“I thought you were all about soaking up the atmosphere, so that you could write your report.” He pointed at the notebook in her hand. “We can do both. You soak and I’ll snack!”

She shook her head and turned back to look around her. Apart from the ivy and the invading blackberry bushes, an old honeysuckle was in full flower at the far end of the Orangerie, growing from a narrow soil flowerbed where the herringbone brick path stopped. She walked towards it slowly, captivated by thickness of the vines and the heady scent as she got closer, perfuming the air and covering the stench of the bird droppings on the floor. The flowers were an entrancing curtain, hiding the ruin of the jagged glass wall and splintering wooden frame at its back. She stopped and trailed her fingers through the long stems of vibrant blossoms. “So beautiful,’ she whispered.

She turned, wanting to call Xander’s attention to the flowers, but he had his back to her, stretching upwards, hands grasping for the blackberries at the top of the plant, his free arm holding back the thorny branches that curled around his side, almost as if they were consuming him, as he consumed their fruit. “Watch out,” she called.

He turned quickly and his hand caught on the rebounding branches, scratching at the back of his knuckles. “Ouch.” He raised his hand to his mouth and sucked at the scratch. “Darn it. I think the plant tried to eat me.”

She giggled. “Just turnaround for you trying to eat it, I guess.”

“It didn’t have to be so nasty about it,” he replied. “You called. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing wrong. I just wanted you to see the honeysuckle.” She nodded behind her. “Isn’t it pretty? Isn’t it amazing that it’s survived so well, when everything else is broken, or being invaded by plants from outside?”

“Amazing?” He tilted his head and considered the honeysuckle. “It’s nice, I guess. But does it produce stuff you can eat?”

“And again, you are such a boy. Don’t you ever think about anything but your stomach?”

“Let me think about that. Um, no.”

“Go back to your blackberries.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He executed a sloppy salute and turned back towards the blackberry plant, easing his way back towards the ripest fruit at the top of the bush.

She watched him for a moment, before turning back to the honeysuckle. It really was beautiful, so full of life in such a shattered space. She could feel the ideas for her school report bubble up inside her, the thought of all this life – the ivy, the blackberries and, most of all, the honeysuckle in the midst of the Orangerie’s broken shell. She hugged herself, already imagining the pages of her notebook filling with words as she described and dissected this forgotten little world.

Crouching down, she brushed her fingers through the dust at the base of the plant and wished she could touch the roots and get inside the thoughts and feelings of the vine and the flowers to understand its essence – why it had sustained and flourished when so much around it was broken and barren? As her fingertips danced across the warm bricks under the curtain of blossoms, she felt the edge of something sharp. She paused and moved her fingers again, and there was a hard edge of something colder than the stone floor. Curling her hand around it, she pulled it back slowly, revealing a large piece of grey slate with smooth bevelled edges, as if it had been crafted with precision and care.

She shuffled backwards until the slate was fully visible. It was covered in dust, but there were chalk lines barely visible under the grime. Knowing what was under the dirt – what the lines depicted and what they meant was suddenly the most important thing in her world.

She shifted until she was sitting cross legged, uncaring of the dirt on the floor, her new notebook discarded at her side and the slate cradled between her knees. She pulled a handkerchief out of her overalls pocket and rubbed lightly at the dust and dirt, careful as an archeologist, until the chalk lines on the slate became clearer and more defined. Growing from the base was the outline of a hand holding what looked like a snow globe, balanced on the tips of its outstretched fingers. It reminded her of an Escher drawing she’d once seen in art class. In the snow globe were small straight lines of differing lengths, some parallel and some at right angles, but all with a purpose that she couldn’t quite grasp.

She stared harder, determined to decipher the puzzle and between one heartbeat and the next, realisation hit and she knew. She just knew.

It was the map. A map of a town. Sunnydale in miniature. 

She traced the lines of the hand, skimming over the chalk but not quite touching as she followed the outline of each finger and the outside of the globe. Leaning forward, she peered at the town map and felt herself drawn downwards, as if she could fall into the sketch, into the globe, into the town and see the world from another perspective, another plane, another existence. 

The air was thick and the scent of the honeysuckle was sickly and cloying, melding with the stink of years of roosting birds. Cicadas chirped a grating symphony, and the ivy climbing up the outside and over the sagging roof was thicker and darker, clinging to every shattered pane and buckled window frame. The hard, warm bricks on the floor were soft and spongy and damp and Xander was hip deep in the blackberry bush, its tentacle branches wound around his arms, holding them out like a scarecrow and his mouth and chin were stained purple as he sank slowly into the centre of the bush, its thorns piercing his eyes and nose and lips. The loose shoelace of his sneaker was a snake, curling around his ankle, pulling him down and the sharp defined edges of the herringbone path wavered and warped, distorting the scene in a funfair mirror. 

She wanted to call to him, but the slate, and the hand and snow globe sketch of the town, pulled her down, drowning her senses, drowning her sense, until all she could see were the fine lines of the streets and houses and parks where she’s played a thousand games and planned to play a thousand more. The centre of the map bulged outwards, two dimensions becoming three and there, at the centre of the map, where she knew the high school should be, there was emptiness, a void, terrifying, tempting, tantalising, as if it was waiting for her to fill its desolation with her own spark, her own self, her own soul.

A voice was calling her, crooning and cajoling, a seductive siren song painting pictures of futures free from fear, free from doubt. “Willow, come dance with me. Willow, come play with me. Willow, come be with me.” The whisper became a giggle, soft and high, sweet and citrus sharp and bitter. 

Her breath was hot, making impossible steam on the glass chalk snow globe map - fingers on the hand holding it getting longer and sharper until it teetered right on the outmost edge of fingernails. “Willow,” crooned the voice. “Come be me. You are me.” The grey slate was glass, cracked and jagged like the windows of the Orangerie that was another universe, another time, and in the bulging globe, in the void was an image of a pale skinned girl, with blue-black hair and eyes as dark and blank as the shuttered windows of the empty house she remembered somewhere on the edge of her dreams. “I see you,” the voice whispered. “I am you.”

“Willow.” Another voice was calling her. It sounded a lifetime away, but then it came again. 

“Wills.” 

She pulled back, the blood pounding in her brain, her breath short and harsh, thundering in her ears. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

“What?” the voice said behind her. She rose and stumbled backwards, the slate sliding to the floor, the momentum driving it back under the honeysuckle curtain. She turned and Xander stood, an arms-length away, a handful of blackberries in one hand, his mouth stained purple. 

“Are you okay?” he said.

“Xander?”

“That’s me. You alright? I was calling you and you seemed kind of out of it. You had me worried for a minute.”

“Umm, yeah.” She glanced behind her, but the slate was nowhere to be seem and she knew she didn’t have the courage to see if it was still there behind the honeysuckle. “I guess I just spaced a bit. It’s kind of hot in here”

“Do you want to go? Did you soak up enough vibes for your paper?” He popped a blackberry in his mouth and offered the remaining ones to her. 

“No,” she said. “To the blackberries, I mean. You have them. And yes, I’ve got enough. More than enough. I’ll write it up when I get home.”

“Cool,” he replied, tossing the last few berries into his mouth and turned back towards the door. It was shut. She didn’t remember shutting it when they came in.

She glanced back at the honeysuckle – it was bright and beautiful and the sun slanted through the shading ivy, making patterns of light on the herringbone bricks at her feet. She shook her head. “Stupid imagination,” she muttered, bending down to pick up the abandoned notebook and turned back to Xander who stood waiting for her, one hand on the door handle.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “You look kind of pale, even for you.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go.” She watched breathless as he turned the door handle, a part of her scared that the door would refuse to open, but the handle turned easily and he pushed the door open wide.

“I’ll race you back to the bottom of the drive,” he said. “Double or quits on the milkshakes.”

She walked towards him, careful to avoid the invading weeds and rubbish on the path. “Sure. If you’re going to play fair this time.”

He laughed. “Where would be the fun in that?” 

“Dork.”

He laughed again, then he was gone, quick as the wind, his long legs tearing down the drive. He stopped at the corner of the house and walked backwards. “Come on,” he shouted. “You going to give up that easily, Rosenberg?” 

“Just you wait, Harris,” she called.

“Bring it on.” He turned and started jogging down the drive, skirting the edge of the house.

Willow watched him go, a huge smile on her face. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Rosenberg.”

She took a last look around the Orangerie and as she reached the door she stumbled on an uneven brick on the floor. She was sure it hadn’t been uneven before. As she wheeled and grabbed at the door handle she saw her reflection, pale face, red hair, green eyes, fragmented in the cracked panes of the door.

The dark haired, black eyed girl grinned back.

Willow shoved the door outwards, her feet slipping on the lichen-covered threshold. She staggered onto the firm gravel of the driveway and a giggle behind her came high and clear. Her notebook fell from nerveless fingers and thoughts of ‘A’ grades and term papers forgotten, Willow ran.

Behind her, the momentum of her shove made the door swing back, battering it against the buckled frame and the glass etched sketch of the rising sun on the transom shattered.

The ivy clung to the walls and roof of the Orangerie and the blackberry bush oozed between cracked panes and splintered wood. At the end of the herringbone brick path, the honeysuckle rose, flourished and bloomed. And kept its secrets. 

And its roots ran deep.


End file.
